At the very beginning of her mess, Maureen McDonnell, the cash-strapped wife of erstwhile Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, had the good sense to turn down an Oscar de la Renta dress that a generous donor suggested she wear to her husband’s inauguration.

She asked for a “rain check.” And perhaps Jonnie Williams, the embattled CEO of a dietary pill concern, heard “rain coat” instead. After all, that’s what the McDonnells allegedly got from him—a nice Louis Vuitton number—in addition to a closetful of other luxury goods, according to an indictment issued this week in federal court. Gucci shoes, Armani dresses, a custom Rolex. Prosecutors say that in exchange for access and favors from the governor, Williams financed a sprawling spending spree that involved a shopping trip in New York where Maureen spent “$10,999 at Oscar de la Renta, approximately $5,685 at Louis Vuitton, and approximately $2,604 at Bergdorf Goodman.”

In the annals of ill-advised shopping, the McDonnells’s taste for the finer things may stand out, but there’s nothing new about politicians ringing up ridiculous bills. Here are what a few of our favorite free-spenders got with their money—or, as is more common, with somebody else’s.

You could say that what the free-spending congressman and his wife lacked in creativity when financing their shady shopping, they made up for in audacity. The scion of the Chicago political family, with plenty of campaign cash at hand, used $750,000 of it on an impressively absurd spending spree that stretched from 2005-2012 and resulted in the acquisition of things like two stuffed elk heads ($7,058) and a slew of Michael Jackson memorabilia ($28,000), including the late singer’s fedora ($4,600) and a guitar used by Eddie Van Halen ( $4,000). The $43,350 Rolex they picked up would have made Maureen McDonnell blush—the one she allegedly arranged to have gifted to her husband cost only $6,500. All in, the Jacksons dropped $17,000 for cigars and tobacco, nearly $61,000 at “restaurants, nightclubs and lounges” plus “thousands for electronic toys” including fancy televisions—presumably far nicer TVs than the ones at Jackson’s current abode, the Butner Federal Correctional Complex in North Carolina.

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Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin

Tab: at least $200,000

After becoming the mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, in 1996—elected on an anti-spending platform!—Palin used $50,000 in city cash to redecorate her office, settling on a garish red wallpaper (“It looked like a bordello,” said one city councilor). Twelve years later, while running for vice president, the hockey mom dropped $150,000 of Republican National Committee money on campaign outfits, spending $75,062 at Neiman Marcus and $49,425 at Saks Fifth Avenue in September 2008. And it wasn’t just the former governor who enjoyed the GOP’s largesse: Palin spent more than $100 at Pacifier, an upmarket Minneapolis baby store, and shelled out at least $5,000 outfitting her husband Todd, her “First Dude.” The RNC documented the purchases as “campaign accessories.”

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President Andrew Jackson

Tab: $50,000 ($1,240,000 in 2014 dollars)

Following his first inauguration in 1829, Andrew Jackson, the purported “People’s President,”decided he wanted to redecorate the White House in the Federal style in preparation for the wedding of his niece. To justify the purchase of chandeliers, carpets from Brussels and porcelains from France, Old Hickory famously threw open the White House’s doors and hosted a party that packed the building so tightly that Jackson was forced to exited through a window. Fondly recalled as a soirée meant to usher in a new era of Jacksonian populism, the bash—which Supreme Court Justice Joseph Story described as bringing together the “highest and most polished down to the most vulgar and gross in the nation”—was just as much a clever ploy to acquire congressional cash for new home furnishings.

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Columba Bush, wife of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush

Tab: $23,100 (with fine)

On returning home from a shopping trip to Paris in 1999, the Florida first lady got a little worried about how much she had spent and, perhaps considering the political optics, decided to downplay things, declaring only $500 in purchases. According to a Customs spokesman, when agents got a look at her receipts, they discovered, “they were a little bit more.” More like $19,000.

The New York Times suggested Mrs. Bush was undone when the agents found “receipts for thousands of dollars of clothes and jewelry stuffed in her passport.” For the transgression, she was ordered to pay a $4,100 fine—a figure four times larger than the original duty had she declared her Parisian wares. “It is a lot of money,” acknowledged the governor. “I can assure you it was a difficult weekend at our house.”

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Rebecca Buckwalter-Poza has written for The Atlantic, The Daily Beast, Pacific Standard and others. She’s the co-author, with James Carville, of 40 More Years. Follow her on Twitter at @rpbp.